Seasoning in piles

[2broke2ride]

Does anyone season in just heaping piles? If so how long? Just a curiosity question, I always am right on top of getting my wood bucked and split but don't seem to get it stacked as quickly. But I always figure that cut, split, and thrown in a pile is better than leaving it in rounds or logs.

 

[Hasufel]

I've had a couple of stacks that fell over and stayed in piles for several months. The wood still seasoned well and generally was in good shape, except that the bottom layer tended to be pretty wet. I still stack as soon as I can but if you have a pile and keep it off the ground it should be OK for a while.

 

[Wood Duck]

The problem with a pile is that a lot of the wood is in contact with the ground, and that wood won't season well. The wood on top of the pile will be fine, but the wood on the bottom may rot and/or never dry out.

 

[Knots]

I tried it once. In a greenhouse. The stuff in the center didn't dry.

 

[2broke2ride]

I don't do it purposely, it just sometimes takes me a while to get my stuff stacked. I know there are a lot of people around here that do but they also run smoke dragons and don't seem to care if it's dry or not. I have a buddy that does it but he has about 150 cords piled up right now so it has plenty of time to dry since he only uses 3 to 4 cord a year.

 

[Applesister]

I have a neighbor who does it, they have an outdoor boiler. It eats alot of wood. They buy log trucks, pay a guy with a portable processor to come and split it all and then the processor conveyors it into huge piles.
They have a tractor with a bucket.

 

[Fred Wright]

A fellow down the road does this. Keeps a huge pile of splits near his garage. He has a small bucket loader, uses that to stir and mix the pile very few weeks. If left alone, the stuff beneath the surface won't dry.

 

[English BoB]

My piles do not season well outside.......and they itch.

bob

 

[Paulywalnut]

If it's just a third of a stack or maybe a half cord, it's not high enough to really get the benefit of wind. It will eventually season, but if it's fresh cut oak or locust it will take five years

 

[heavy hammer]

It seems like the stuff in the middle and on the bottom never ever really dry out. The wind has a hard time drying out the middle and the stuff on the bottom just always seems wet from the ground and the rain. I always try to get my stuff stacked as quickly as I can after splitting.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

2broke2ride- I lost an enormous amount of wood to rot leaving it in piles the last couple of years, as I recently discovered. Wish I had gotten it off the ground and covered it. Going forward I am going to make a much greater effort to do so going forward. Expe$ive lesson, even measured only in time, effort, gas, wear and tear on the equipment, as I have a woodlot that provides the wood.

 

[2broke2ride]

This is all pretty much what I thought anyway, it just sucks being in the minority and actually even being made fun of sometimes because I insist on bucking, splitting, and stacking asap. The majority around here seem to buck, split, and throw in a heaping pile then burn it two or three months later. The guys at work call me the "wood cyclops" not exactly sure what it's supposed to mean because I definately have both my eyes, but I do know they mean it in a derogatory way cause they sure laugh about it.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

This is all pretty much what I thought anyway, it just sucks being in the minority and actually even being made fun of sometimes because I insist on bucking, splitting, and stacking asap. The majority around here seem to buck, split, and throw in a heaping pile then burn it two or three months later. The guys at work call me the "wood cyclops" not exactly sure what it's supposed to mean because I definately have both my eyes, but I do know they mean it in a derogatory way cause they sure laugh about it.

Let 'em laugh, I'm am never more at peace than I am when sitting in front of my stove pumping out tons of free heat, with a good supply of fuel outside, and I know that whatever happens, we are going to be toasty warm! Nothing wrong with doing it right,

 

[2broke2ride]

Oh, I don't let them bother me, I just keep my mouth shut and keep moving forward. I'm still not two years ahead yet, burning wood right now that's only 9 months seasoned, mostly oak too, luckily my smoke dragon tolerates it pretty well but hopefully I will only burn half of this wood this year and I am working up some white and red oak and sugar maple right now to put toward next year and beyond.

 

[Dobish]

Right now I have a few piles... i had one that i tossed in a pile since I didn't have a place to stack it, and then I have another couple of piles of 4-5' logs that I haven't been able to buck and stack. It seems like every time I go out there to do it, it snows or rains. I am trying to find a good spot for my stacks, since I don't want to have to move them again in a few months when I start tackling some landscaping in the back yard.... I could definitely tell that the stuff on the middle of the pile was not drying out nearly as quickly as the top layers....

 

[Pyrate Dave]

Since the beginning of December, I have bucked and split two trees (one I had felled for me as I lack the experience and it was close to structure, the other I did while being supervised/taught). As this is the first time I have processed and seasoned wood on my property, I sought some advice and was told to pile the wood on pallets and let it season for a year, then stack it and give it another year. Should I continue on this path, or am I better off stacking the wood for better drying?

 

[Applesister]

I process one tree at a time. Like baling hay. Just pick a good weather stretch and process and stack and cover, move on to next tree. That way I dont get overwhelmed by huge piles.
But I know some of you get access to alot of wood at once.
At the least, pile rounds on pallets to get that air pocket in the drying mix.

 

[Dobish]

I process one tree at a time. Like baling hay. Just pick a good weather stretch and process and stack and cover, move on to next tree. That way I dont get overwhelmed by huge piles.
But I know some of you get access to alot of wood at once.
At the least, pile rounds on pallets to get that air pocket in the drying mix.

i would have liked to process 1 tree at a time, but we had quite a few to take down in the back yard (around 45 boxelders) and had some friends get a little over-zealous with their chainsaws!

 

[splions]

I have about 2-3 cords in a large pile. It is all on pallets up off the ground. I am hoping that will keep it from rotting.

 

[Oldman47]

I process one tree at a time. Like baling hay. Just pick a good weather stretch and process and stack and cover, move on to next tree. That way I dont get overwhelmed by huge piles.
But I know some of you get access to alot of wood at once.
At the least, pile rounds on pallets to get that air pocket in the drying mix.

I got a tree service pile of wood from a yard tree ash they took down for me about 4 years ago. It was all cut to about 24 inches because I just did not know any better. I piled up the rounds that I was able to move on top of some sapling sized branches from the same tree. This summer I realized that my new stove needed splits about half that length so I started moving the piles to a cross buck and sawing them in half then splitting them. When first cut and split my ash has been close to 20% so I am not too concerned about seasoning them more than they have already seen. I have been cutting green wood all summer from my yard to get rid of fence busters so I have lots of trunk sections of around 8 to 10 inches diameter. It is great wood like mulberry and wild black cherry, P serotina, so I have been piling it separately from the ash since it will not be ready any time soon. My experience is not quite the same since I have so much catch up to do with over a cord of older ash to process.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I process one tree at a time. Like baling hay. Just pick a good weather stretch and process and stack and cover, move on to next tree. That way I dont get overwhelmed by huge piles.
But I know some of you get access to alot of wood at once.
At the least, pile rounds on pallets to get that air pocket in the drying mix.

Hay is a great analogy. I would have liked to do this, but when I moved in a few years back, one of my new neighbors told me that the township was debating an ordinance that would require a permit for every tree cut. I did the research, and saw that it was true. As the property is an old farm and the previous residents had let lots of invasive trees grow for the last 30 years, I decided not to wait until the township became my partner in the task, and cleared 'em out. Don't get me wrong, I really like my trees, but they really needed thinned around the house and garden, and almost every one that I cut had been damaged by the bittersweet and wild grape vines. I think my new neighbor was trying to deter me from cutting anything down by telling me about the debated ordinance, but what it did was change my priorities. In the end, one of the supervisors decided that the ordinance was too intrusive on property rights, and it did not pass. But not before I ended up with a big pile of rounds!

 

[Dobish]

i had the day off yesterday, so i got rid of some of my piles. This was the scrounge from when they were doing tree work for the utility company. I still have to cut a bit shorter and split it, but at least it is off the ground!




This pile is a bit older, but by the time I cleaned up the majority of the scrounge, I didn't get around to cutting up very much of it.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

Don't do it. Your will have a top layer of somewhat dry wood covering up a mountain of bugs and rot. The wood on the bottom will literally turn to dirt as you are essentially creating a compost pile by piling up cut firewood on the ground and leaving it exposed.

I would rather have 1 cord of properly stacked, off the ground, seasoned, dry wood than 10 cords of piled and rotten wood.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Don't do it. Your will have a top layer of somewhat dry wood covering up a mountain of bugs and rot. The wood on the bottom will literally turn to dirt as you are essentially creating a compost pile by piling up cut firewood on the ground and leaving it exposed.

I would rather have 1 cord of properly stacked, off the ground, seasoned, dry wood than 10 cords of piled and rotten wood.

Yep, you are exactly right, CentralVA. Just what happened to me. Only saving grace is, now I have some piles that I will add to the garden as they rot away, and instead of heat, I'll have compost for the garden. I'll say, the shrinkage from fresh cut to the amount of compost when fully rotted is astounding. No waste, just loss of a higher use for the wood, and a lesson well learned.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

Yep, you are exactly right, CentralVA. Just what happened to me. Only saving grace is, now I have some piles that I will add to the garden as they rot away, and instead of heat, I'll have compost for the garden. I'll say, the shrinkage from fresh cut to the amount of compost when fully rotted is astounding. No waste, just loss of a higher use for the wood, and a lesson well learned.

Great use for it! We have several large gardens and that's how we started them. My wife and I spent weeks gathering rotten wood from the forests around the property and laid it inside the frames for the gardens. I then had several dump trucks of dirt put on top of them. The soil quality has been fantastic.